use baking soda on the bottom in the winter.

That helps with the smell?

Absorbency and smell. I keep a box by the pan upstairs and sprinkle on the bottom and then add litter. If the cats lay an egregious poop-egg and don't cover it (BAD KITTY) I cover it in the soda. It cuts the smell immediately.

I clean the box out once a week, on trash day.

It would probably be futile to send that to my mom, huh.

Or email the writer! Just a thought.

Zen, have you tried liners? I gotta admit I'm cringing at how much landfill is being produced by just throwing out the cat pan instead of cleaning it.

java, I have tried liners. Leo digs right through them; they're unfortunately useless. To clarify I scoop once or twice a day; I don't throw the pan out every time it needs cleaning, just when it's... too much eww to deal with. One of my boys likes to see how far and wide and up he can get. (The pan's inside a big plastic storage box to contain the mess. That box, I scrub.) The pan's made of plastic and my trash company does single-stream recycling, so maybe it's getting recycled into something. I've probably more than offset it from stopping buying bottled water.

Oh I hear you about the ripped up liners. I sometimes miss having an indoor cat, but I tell you I do not miss the shredded furniture or the litter duty. No sirree.

Leo has agreed to only shred the one chair and footstool that are old and crappy anyway. He will be sad when I replace them with things he cannot scratch. Percy is still working out what's His To Scratch and what's Mine Leave It Alone, but he's learning. You'd think scent-marking would work. I may have to spit on all my stuff.

I may have to spit on all my stuff.

I am going to blame Buffistas for the first thought that came into mind when I saw this: you could make a home movie of this and charge for hits. Surely there is a spit-fetish clan out there somewhere.

Hello!

Um. I forgot what I was going to Meara. Dang it.

I found a place just under my price range. The kicker is, it has a high land/lease amount. A unit in the same building, same rough size has half the lease amount. Seems fishy. If that was a typo on the MLS listings, I'll be a happy camper. I asked my Realtor to get a look-see.

Leo has agreed to only shred the one chair and footstool that are old and crappy anyway. He will be sad when I replace them with things he cannot scratch.

You are probably already employing this strategy, but just in case - I often recommend having several scratching posts/thingies made of different types of materials, different sizes. Sisal-wrapped ones seem to be my cats' favorite, but plain wood, burlap, and cardboard also get some use. Those cheap ones made of sisal on either cardboard or small wood planks that are made to hang off door knobs are great to have around, because you can put them anywhere. Then when a cat scratches furniture or carpet or woodwork that you want to not get utterly destroyed, you can place the scratching thingy right where the tempting item is. And once he gets used to scratching the scratching thingy, you can gradually move it to a more convenient location.